Blinded by science?

Research is research. Science, art, music, English, history - you can research any and all of these, mostly with the same methods. The tools might change from subject to subject, but the approach is still the same. Sing along if you know the words:
1) Make a list of search terms
2) Use the terms to search high-quality databases such as EBSCO and Questia
3) Save books and articles into a folder
4) Read, take notes, and write
5) Create a bibliography of sources or Works Cited page

So, if you're struggling with that science essay, take heart! You don't have to paddle your canoe all over the vast ocean of the Internet - try a library database instead. You're a trained researcher now - apply those skills and win that prize!

A Tribe Called Questia

Congratulations! You've gotten past my blog post title (and apparently lived through the 90s if you got the joke.)

Further congrats on visiting the left side of the library's portal page if that's where you're reading this. Here on the left, we're the blog. Regular, if infrequent, posts from the library about books and library news; candid photos of the students and faculty - always with permission! - and links to stuff I think is good enough to merit taking the time to build one.

For the past two weeks I've been doing workshops on using the research tools at your disposal here at ODA. You already know Out-of-Door has a nice library, but did you know what kind of amazing electronic resources we have, right at your fingertips? We've got EBSCO Discovery Service, which bundles together all the databases to which we subscribe all in one neat package, rather like shopping at a single grocery store for all your needs instead of going to a bunch of little shops.

But it won't search Questia. Questia is a digital library of almost 80,000 books and millions of articles on every subject under the sun, perfect for the seeker of research in any discipline - history, literature, science, mathematics, and beyond. And no Questia book is ever "checked out," either - fifty of you could read the same one all at once. Furthermore, it allows you to save all those materials into a folder so you can keep them handy until you graduate. Finally . . . this is my big rock-star moment every year . . . Questia has a feature that will BUILD A WORKS CITED PAGE FOR YOU.

Dazzled? Of course. If it's just too much to take in all at once, you can visit me in my office for a demo or take a look at one of several short, helpful tutorial videos I've got posted on the library portal page as well. I'm making a new batch of Questia converts every day - you can research anything you want in there, from 20th century tennis champions to how to build a kayak to how the Great Wall of China was built. Go wild!